Grey sky morning’s twilight enters cold, rouses him,
through icy windows, behind locked doors. It’s 8 am.

She sleeps- like no-rain covers his world, turns bright greens to brown,
brings drought- beneath lead thoughts that tablecloth his mind.

He wrestles- with himself- struggling to find the words
(I must leave now, before I break) to subdue, to arrest… to right

the morning’s shadowed sunrise entering through locked doors
under the cracks of cold windows. It’s 8 am;

his thoughts assault him, turn back to her (turning under covers),
weigh him down, parch his throat until speech fails;

begins to break. Consciousness escapes as words on paper,
release him from their credence, wets his tongue, subsides.

Still, he’s afraid to let go … sometimes, at very least,-

I want to hold on: to these truths, these small wonders, these lies,
In this grey sky’s morning twilight that’s passing through cold windows behind locked doors
Into a bedroom made of card walls and full of secrets. Into my closet filled with shirts and socks and
Ties: gifts. Into drawers containing stories and poems and papers- all shining; igniting silver
Brilliance in the bright darkness- sealed closed so they can’t get out and cut; so they can’t
Burn and crumble or break. To my shelves, stocked with childhood books, photos and picture frames;
My memories captured in glass, bottled and canned… and kept safe.
Desk lamps and alarm
Clocks on night tables; cords and plugs and switches all turning on

The grey sky morning’s twilight that’s emitted from my distant eyes staring and
Trapped in a beating box- my diary, locked, kept safe from the judging gaze of strangers
And lovers: from warmth and hurt and love and pain and hate, from her:
My insecurities, lying porcelain in the grey skied morning twilight,
next to me,
Worlds away on a goose down stage floating over diamonds.
It’s anytime she dreams
Behind frost laden windows, those doors of hers I can never quite open, feelings I can never keep safe;

An ascetic desert,
Where anything floating falls and porcelain shatters on only dense carbon,  
Where paper burns silver instead of gold and card walls crumble under
this immense weight,
Where glass and lead are bent, gifts are thrown away-
And diaries… hearts… they always break.

-he’s afraid to let go,

but as he moves those thoughts from head to hand to pen to pad
there comes a weightlessness.  

He- as the sun begins its ascent, leaves the bitter solitude of the east,
falls across the skies, westward, burning gold, warming the panes

-unlocks the door and steps out, picking up the pieces, smoothing the cracks.
It’s 8 a.m. It’s starting to rain.